The American Mafia - Who Was Who: Cleveland

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Todaro, Salvatore (c1897-1929)

Born Licata, Sicily, c1897.
Killed Cleveland, OH, June 11, 1929.

Once the top lieutenant in "Big Joe" Lonardo's Cleveland Mafia, "Black Sam" Todaro was the only non-Lonardo partner in the Lonardo Brothers Company on East Ninth Street. The other partners were Joseph and his brothers Frank and John. While the company outwardly engaged in the selling of cheese, it did far greater business supplying corn sugar and yeast to Prohibition Era moonshining operations.

"Black Sam" Todaro had a falling out with the boss in the mid-1920s. During a Lonardo trip to Sicily, Todaro was left in charge of the business. Todaro reportedly mistreated a Jewish employee in the operation, and Lonardo got word of it. When Lonardo returned, he ordered underling Lorenzo Lupo to murder "Black Sam." Influential Mafioso Nicola Gentile convinced Lonardo to cancel the death sentence, but the damage to the Lonardo-Todaro relationship could not be repaired.

Todaro broke away from Lonardo. With help from the numerous Porrello brothers, Todaro created a rival corn sugar operation and worked to undercut "Big Joe's" prices.

In 1927, while Todaro was on his own trip to Sicily, Joseph Lonardo and his younger brother John were murdered at a Porrello-owned barbershop in Cleveland. The Lonardo family was convinced that "Black Sam" was behind the murder.

Todaro became boss of the Cleveland Mafia, a development with repercussions for the entire Sicilian Mafia in the United States. Lonardo had been a loyal supporter of Mafia boss of bosses Salvatore "Toto" D'Aquila and assisted D'Aquila in maintaining his national leadership role during a war with Manhattan's Giuseppe Masseria. Todaro and the Porrello brothers repositioned the Cleveland Mafia in the Masseria camp.

D'Aquila was murdered in Manhattan about a year after Todaro became boss in Cleveland. Todaro then hosted a national Mafia convention in December 1928 that was likely the moment of Masseria's coronation as new boss of bosses.

In the months that followed, Lonardo's widow Concetta repeatedly sought Todaro's financial assistance. It was common for her to be driven to the Todaro-Porrello headquarters and have Todaro chat with her at her car. On June 11, 1929, Concetta's eighteen-year-old son (and chauffeur) Angelo Lonardo and her twenty-two-year-old nephew Dominic Sospirato were in the car with her. As Todaro approached, the two young men shot him to death.

Concetta Lonardo was tried for murder and acquitted. Angelo Lonardo and Dominic Sospirato were tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. They won a new trial on appeal and were acquitted in their second trial.

Todaro's widow Carmela continued to live in the family's $10,000 home on East 126th Street. The Todaro children appear to have split their time between Cleveland and Sicily. Three children were noted at the time of "Black Sam's" murder: Joseph, 7; Mary, 6; Frank, 4. Only Mary was present in the home at the time of the 1930 U.S. Census ten months later.

Dr. Giuseppe Romano, who later served as Cleveland Mafia boss, was administrator of the Todaro estate. Among other responsibilities, he saw to the sale of Salvatore Todaro's 1924 Lincoln Phaeton touring car.

A 1924 Phaeton

Sources:

Cleveland City Directory 1922, Cleveland: Cleveland Directory Company, 1922, p. 2539.
Cleveland City Directory 1925, Cleveland: Cleveland Directory Company, 1925, p. 1833.
Estate of Sam Todaro, Doc. 220, No. 183151, Probate Court of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, June 27, 1929.
Gentile, Nick, Vita di Capomafia, Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1963.
Kenen, I.L., "Corn sugar racket has taken seven lives," Cincinnati Enquirer, Aug. 4, 1930.
Obituary Index, Ancestry.com.
Organized Crime: 25 Years After Valachi, Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, 100th Congress, 2nd Session, Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988, p. 530.
United States Census of 1930, Ohio, Cuyahoga County, Cleveland City, Ward 29, Enumeration District 18-498.

Petro, Julius (1922-1969)

Born Cleveland, OH, June 13, 1922.

Killed Los Angeles, CA, Jan. 10, 1969

Julius Anthony Petro was born June 13, 1922, in Cleveland, Ohio, to John and Lydia Petro, Italian immigrants. One of three children, he grew up in a residential area several blocks from the rail yards in the South Collinwood neighborhood on Cleveland's east side.

As a young man, Petro became involved in a gang of robbers and safecrackers in northwest Ohio. As a result of his illegal activities, he came close to death at least twice.

He survived an Ohio execution sentence handed down following his October 1946 conviction for murder. He was believed responsible for killing Theodore "Bobby" Knaus, his accomplice, following the robbery of $4,000 from Green's Cafe in Cleveland. While on death row, Petro won a retrial on appeal. He was acquitted of the murder on June 16, 1948.

Just three months later, Petro was identified as one of five gunmen who robbed the Green Acres casino in Struthers, just outside of Youngstown, Ohio. Two hundred and fifty patrons were inside the casino at the time of the 4 a.m. robbery on Sept. 17, 1948. An estimated $30,000 of cash and jewels was taken from the casino and its gamblers. According to rumors, a three-and-a-half-carat diamond ring belonging to Joseph DiCarlo was part of the loot. DiCarlo and regional gambling racketeer Frank Budak were believed to be the operators of the Green Acres.

During the robbery, shots were exchanged between the intruders and casino guards, and, on Sept. 18, Petro was brought into Cleveland's Emergency Clinic Hospital with gunshot wounds to his right chest and arm. Petro recovered from his wounds and went back to his old ways.

At 9:40 in the morning of Aug. 14, 1952, Petro and accomplice Joseph J. Sanzo stopped a car driven by Charles J. Foley, branch manager of Union Savings and Trust Company in Warren OH. The two men, wearing burlap hoods, approached the car. One broke the passenger window of the car with a sawed-off shotgun, while the other stood at the driver's side window with a revolver. Foley turned over a money bag containing $71,000.

Petro and Sanzo were identified fleeing from the scene. They had also been seen in the vicinity at the time of the robbery and previous to it. When arrested, each had in his possession money taken from Foley.
Petro was convicted of armed bank robbery and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He served about 13 years of that term, and was released in May of 1966.

Upon his release, he joined a number of Cleveland racketeers who had relocated to southern California. There he reportedly became an enforcer for a gambling operation. By the end of 1968, Petro was seen as a threat to John G. "Sparky" Monica, who ran the gambling rackets. Monica approached another former Cleveland-affiliated gangster, Raymond W. Ferrito of Erie, Pennsylvania, to deal with the threat.

On Jan. 10, 1969, Petro borrowed a 1966 Cadillac convertible from friend Roberta Miller in order to make a drive to Los Angeles International Airport.

Two days later, police were alerted to a man slumped over the steering wheel of a car in the airport parking lot. They found the man dead with a small caliber gunshot wound at the base of his skull. No identifying papers were found with the body. Through fingerprints, police identified the murder victim as Petro.

A federal grand jury was convened in Los Angeles in 1969 to look into the activities of the regional underworld, in particular the murder of Petro. Nick Licata, 72, believed to be the Mafia boss of southern California, was brought in for questioning early in July. Though granted immunity from prosecution, Licata refused to answer questions and was jailed for contempt of court.

Nine years later, Ferrito turned informant and admitted to being the gunman in the Petro murder. He pleaded guilty to second degree murder. He told authorities that John Monica paid him $5,000 to kill Petro. Monica denied ordering the murder. Ferrito also claimed responsibility for the October 1977 bombing murder of racketeer Daniel Greene in Cleveland.

Sources:

California Death Index.
Demaris, Ovid, The Last Mafiosi, 1981.
Dye, Lee, “Parolee’s murder mystifies police,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 16, 1969, p. 1
Farr, Bill, “’Hit man’ admits murder at airport,” Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1978, p. 5
Hazlett, Bill, “1969 gangland slaying case headed for trial,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 8, 1982, p. C6.
Hertel, Howard, and Gene Blake, "Reputed Mafia chief defies court, jailed," Los Angeles Times, July 10, 1969, p. 1.
Hunt, Thomas, and Michael A. Tona, DiCarlo: Buffalo's First Family of Crime, Volume II, 2013.
"In the matter of proceedings to compel Robert J. McAuley as a witness in a criminal proceeding in California," Court of Appeals of Ohio, decided Aprl 12, 1979.
"Informers said to give key testimony on crime figures," New York Times, Feb. 8, 1978, p. 16.
Petro v. United States, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Feb. 12, 1954. (Also Joseph J. Sanzo v. U.S.)
“Petro, freed in killing, is found shot,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, Sept. 18, 1948.
Porrello, Rick, Superthief, 2006.
Porrello, Rick, To Kill the Irishman, 1998.
U.S. Census of 1930
U.S. Census of 1940

Gentile, Nicola (1884-c1970)

Born Siculiana, Sicily, June 12, 1884

Died Sicily, c1970.

"Zu Cola" Gentile was a Sicilian Mafioso who traveled the United States as a sort of underworld handyman.

Born in the southern Sicilian community of Siculiana in 1884, he arrived in the U.S. at age 19. Much of his time in the U.S. was spent in western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri. He was a trusted confidant of New York Mafiosi from the early 1900s through the Castellammarese War. He was called upon to mediate a dispute between the Morello-Lupo clan and boss of bosses Salvatore D'Aquila in the 1920s. He also was called upon to mediate disputes involving Chicago and Los Angeles crime bosses and underworld rivals in New York City.(1)

Gentile made a number of trips across the national criminal network and briefly served in leadership roles the Kansas City, Cleveland and Pittsburgh Mafia families. He was on intimate terms with Pittsburgh bosses Gregorio Conti and John Bazzano, and Cleveland bosses Joe Lonardo and Frank "Ciccio" Milano. He served as a capodecina and counselor in the Pittsburgh Mafia and as temporary commander of the Kansas City mob.(2)

Gentile experienced several close calls. The most dramatic occurred when he was called to the Chicago underworld coronation of Salvatore Maranzano at the conclusion of the Castellammarese War. Then Pittsburgh boss Giuseppe Siragusa had made some secret accusations against Gentile, and Gentile was summoned for a disciplinary hearing that easily could have resulted in his execution. In a face-to-face meeting with host Al Capone, Gentile denied the charges and threatened to behead any person making them. Capone, who recalled meeting Gentile in the days of Mafia boss Mike Merlo, was impressed by Gentile's courage. Siragusa backed off.(3)

In 1937, facing narcotics charges from a federal arrest in New Orleans, LA, he returned to Sicily. After World War II, when Luciano was deported to Italy, the U.S. narcotics enforcement agents believed the two men teamed up in Sicily to arrange drug smuggling into the U.S.(4)

About the time of his escape to Sicily, Gentile decided to write about his Mafia experiences. A manuscript was shared with American agents in Italy. It was translated to English and later turned over to the FBI. Gentile was advised to do no more writing. However, a 1963 book named Vita di Capomafia, he cowrote with journalist Felice Chilante, repeated and expanded upon the material in the earlier manuscript. A series of articles based on the book was run in Italian newspapers. Gentile's early manuscript, published book and articles were used by U.S. law enforcement officials as corroboration (possibly also as foundation) for the tales told by Mafia informant Joe Valachi.(5) (It is likely that bits of Gentile's work were provided to Valachi to fill the considerable gaps in his personal underworld knowledge.)

Gentile received an underworld death sentence for his violation of the Mafia's code of silence. However, his assigned killers took no action against him, allowing him to die of old age.(6) Gentile's passing was not noted by the American press.(7)

Related Links:

Notes:

. Gentile, Nick, Vita di Capomafia, Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1963.
. Gentile. Gentile's leadership of an American Mafia crew is also noted in Gage, Nicholas, "Mafioso's memoirs support Valachi's testimony...," New York Times, Sunday, April 11, 1971, p. 51. His work as a traveling troubleshooter is noted in Messick, Hank, Lansky, New York: Berkley, 1971.
. Gentile.
. Hinton, Harold B., "Luciano rules U.S. narcotics from Sicily, senators hear," New York Times, Thursday, June 28, 1951, p. 1.
. Gage.
. Blickman, Tom, "The Rothschilds of the Mafia on Aruba," Transnational Organized Crime, Vol. 3, No. 2, Summer 1997, Transnational Institute website: http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?page=archives_tblick_aruba .
. In 1971, Gage, closed with, "Nothing has been heard about him in recent years, but he is believed to be still alive."

Ferruccio, Pasquale "Patsy" (1917-2006)

Born Canton, OH, April 8, 1917.

Died Canton, OH, March 31, 2006.

Midwest racketeer Pasquale "Patsy" Macri Ferruccio, was born to immigrant grocer Rocco Ferruccio and his wife Teresa in Canton, Ohio, near the start of World War I. He was raised in an Italian neighborhood on Liberty Street and regularly attended St. Anthony's Catholic Church with his ten siblings.

As an adult, Ferruccio founded the Canton, Ohio-based Liberty Vending Company. He eventually turned management of the facility over to his son, but maintained an office in the headquarters building.

A key participant in Midwest gambling rackets, Ferruccio admitted in 1991 that he ran a video poker operation in Ohio, Kentucky and Pennsylvania from 1978 to 1988. Poker machines illegally designating cash payouts for winning hands were distributed through the Liberty Vending Company to nightclubs and other establishments in the three states.

He was sentenced to 30 months and a $100,000 fine through a plea bargain. (He served 27 months.) Ferruccio's son also pleaded guilty to participation in the gambling venture. He received probation and a small fine.

Angelo Lonardo of Cleveland, a mob underboss who turned government informant, aided the case against Ferruccio by identifying him as a "made" member of the LaRocca Family in Pittsburgh. Ferruccio also appeared to have a working relationship with the Cleveland Mafia family and has been considered a liaison between the two underworld clans.

Upon leaving prison, Ferruccio again had trouble with the law. He was charged with violating release terms after meeting with known Pittsburgh Mafia associate Lennie Strollo (who later became an informant). Ferruccio and Strollo allegedly shared ownership of a gambling facility in Puerto Rico. Ferruccio received two years in prison for that offense.

During that term he concurrently served a year penalty for attempting to obstruct the Indian gaming commission. Ferruccio tried to gain control of operations at the Rincon Indian Reservation Casino near San Diego, California, without divulging his criminal record.

Ferruccio died a month before his 89th birthday.

Civella, Nick (1912-1983)

Born Kansas City, MO, March 19, 1912.

Died Kansas City, MO, March 12, 1983.

During Nick Civella's reign, from the late 1950s to the early 1980s, the KC mob moved aggressively into Las Vegas casinos and reportedly had large interests in the Stardust (opened in 1955), the Fremont (opened in 1956) and later the Landmark Hotel (opened in 1969). The move west was done in concert with Mafia families from Cleveland and Chicago.

Kansas City-born Civella was closely tied to the Teamsters Union during Jimmy Hoffa's presidency and the later presidency of Roy Williams (1915-1988) and appears to have had access to the Teamster pension fund. (After the mob boss's death, Roy Williams told authorities that he was intimidated into doing Civella's bidding.)

Civella is believed to have been an attendee at the 1957 Apalachin, NY, crime convention, though he was able to escape Joseph Barbara's estate without being noticed by authorities. Police found Civella and KC Mafia big shot Joseph Filardo in a taxi at the train station in nearby Binghamton, New York. Civella probably was not yet official boss of the KC crime family at the time, but his underworld faction - including relatives Carl and Anthony Civella and Carl "Tuffy" DeLuna - had become the most powerful in the local mob.

Thanks to his skimming from the Stardust, Civella earned an early place on the Nevada Gaming Commission's Exclusion List. He, his brother Carl and nine others were the first to be named on the list in 1960. In the 1970s, FBI wiretaps revealed the extent of the organized crime conspiracy to skim from the casinos.

Civella spent the later years of his life in prisons. He was released in failing health in 1980 and passed away in March 1983.

Related Links:

Crime boss listing

Ness, Eliott (1903-1957) - U.S. Treasury Dept.

Born Chicago, IL, April 19, 1903.

Died Coudersport, PA, May 16, 1957.

While Eliot Ness was not quite the one-man show depicted on television and radio and in the movies, he was a key player in the government's assault on Al Capone's Chicago crime empire.
Ness led a band of eight young men, titled the "Special Prohibition Unit" but remembered as "The Untouchables" for their refusal of enormous bribe offers. The group conducted a frontal assault against Capone's bootleg brewery operations while other government agencies picked away the crime lord's underbosses and allies and assembled the tax evasion case that would jail Capone in 1931.

Ness later led a municipal police force as Cleveland's Director of Public Safety in the late 1930s. In the job, he thoroughly modernized the city's police department while cracking down on corruption, violent labor activity, gambling and contraband alcohol. News headlines largely ignored his successes, however, and focused on the decapitation murder cases in the Kingsbury Run area that stymied Ness and on his anti-labor image. Ness saw additional bad press as the result of a drunk driving accident in 1942 and was forced to resign his post.

In 1947, former safety director Ness ran as a Republican for mayor of Cleveland. He lost the Nov. 4 election in a landslide to Democrat Thomas A. Burke, having sacrificed much of his personal wealth in the campaign.

Ness eventually left public service and became president of the Guaranty Paper Company and the North Bridge Industrial Corp. in Pennsylvania. He died at his home in Coudersport, PA, on May 16, 1957 (his remains reportedly were cremated), just before his autobiographical "The Untouchables" was published. The book, which exaggerated Ness's importance in the Capone fight and glossed over his failings, became enormously popular and spawned the myth of Eliot Ness.

Read:
The Untouchables by Eliot Ness with Oscar Fraley.

Cavolo, Charles (1891-1958) - Cleveland PD

Born Vietri di Potenza, Italy, March 6, 1891.

Died Cleveland Heights, OH, April 23, 1958.

Detective Charles S. Cavolo was born in southern mainland Italy in 1891 and came to the United States as a teenager in 1907. His family settled on Cleveland's infamous Mayfield Road.Cavolo grew up alongside many who would become Cleveland mobsters. But he decided to take another path, and joined local law enforcement.

Cavolo's familiarity with Italians and Sicilians and his background on Mayfield Road equipped him to challenge the local Mafia on its home turf. During the Prohibition Era, he was highly successful in organized crime cases.

In 1926, he nabbed a Cleveland gangster for importing a Chicago gunman for a hit against a local man. The following year, he worked on two well-publicized murder investigations, those of Samuel Volpe (a sewer contractor found frozen and riddled with bullets in early March) and Louis Nobile.

As a key member of the Cleveland Police Black Hand Squad, Cavolo helped local newspapers to decipher an underworld feud in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Gang leader Frank Lonardo was murdered in fall of 1929. His own bodyguard Frank Alessi was suspected. Bootlegger and convicted cop-killer Carmello Licarti was found dead in a Cleveland gutter in early April 1930, a bullet wound in his head and mud stuffed in his mouth. By the end of the month, Alessi - the suspect in the Lonardo murder - was dead. Cavolo immediately arrested Frank Brancato for that killing.

Cavolo was momentarily discredited in February 1931, when it was reported that he helped murderer and thief Ross Valore win parole. Cavolo was able to prove that he had no part in the parole. He underscored his position on Valore by securing a statement from the convict's wife that implicated Valore in six murders.

The detective tracked the Hymie Martin-Solly Hart gang to Buffalo, NY, in summer of 1931. The gang was wanted for stealing $45,000 worth of jewelry. Cavolo's bloodhound sense also led to the arrest of Carmine Pigano (alias Benny Nacci) on Cleveland streets in 1938. Pigano was wanted in Dearborn, Mich., in connection with the 1930 kidnapping of a nine-year-old boy.

In 1940, as head of the police automobile bureau, Cavolo unearthed a tire theft ring with headquarters in Cleveland and Buffalo. Stolen tires were transported to a Buffalo clearinghouse. Police estimated that the thieves had earned a million dollars through the racket.